Objective Morality Without God

[Ella S.]

Really? 2? The fact that you think intuition can be relied upon to generate correct answers to math problems suggests to me that you are at least around 4 or 5. Note that even 10 only puts intuitions on par with the senses. I think even 10 is putting too much stock in intuitions, that's why I didn't bother making 10 mean "intuition is more reliable than our senses"... because that's an absurd position.

The reason I put myself at 5 is that I think our intuitions are reliable in many arenas, but I also acknowledge the limits of intuitions at precisely determining the truth. They are more like a compass than a map.

I don't recognize that intuition is a reliable means of generating the correct answers to math problems. As I said, these intuitions are ideally double-checked by our analytical minds. I only relied on intuition due to the limitations of my circumstances. I think this is something that should be avoided whenever possible.

I view intuition as almost completely unreliable.

A lot of commited hedonists do exactly as you recommend. They say the thought experiment is misleading. They would argue something like, the true thought experiment should be a choice between a pleasure machine and a suffering machine. A committed hedonist would say that living a normal life might make us happier than the pleasure machine... because a pleasure machine (despite its name) fails to produce many things that are in fact required for pleasure and happiness. (For instance, life outside of the machine provides variety in experience, or periods of displeasure that make pleasure all the more enjoyable when it occurs-- remember, hedonists think pain that leads to greater overall happiness is morally justified).

Also, I wouldn't call the thought experiment a "refutation of hedonism." It is merely a challenge to the idea that pleasure is the sole good. If the idea of pleasure being the sole good becomes dubious, then hedonism itself is dubious. It hardly counts as a refutation of hedonism if this is the case. I happen to see value in the underlying idea of the thought experiment. It points to a potential problem with hedonism that deserves investigation, or at the very least causes hedonists to have to explain themselves further. But I think hedonism survives such scrutiny and remains a viable theory. All of it leads to a more precise explanation. Even if hedonism is true, challenges like this get us closer to understanding WHY it is true.

Look at black hole singularities which suggest that Einsteins theories are problematic or incomplete. They don't stand as a refutation of Einstein, but they do indicate that there is a problem that needs to be worked out. All this gets us closer to a better description of the physical world.

This perspective makes even less sense to me. At least if the argument was, "This consequence feels wrong, therefore your moral axioms are false" it makes some sense as a form of rhetorical technique.

Instead, you're saying that they demonstrate that hedonism is problematic or incomplete, which I don't understand how such a thought experiment does this at all. To me, the most it does is provide an emotionally persuasive point against committing to hedonism. Which I think is exactly what it's meant to do, because I think it's clear that we don't derive values from reality but we assign them ourselves. Ethical arguments like this are pragmatic, not logical.

I don't see how they can be treated as anything else, as you say they can be here. Perhaps they can, but I have to ask why this thought experiment shows that hedonism might be incomplete. I don't see the connection there.

So you find ethics infuriating? Good.

That means you care about the truth of the matter... an invaluable quality in a philosopher. We've all seen folks who argue something one way or the other on these forums, not because they care about the truth of the matter, but because such an item supports their chosen religious or political affiliations. That's not good philosophy.

I like the old Socratic adage: "The only thing I know is that I know nothing."

Of course, we shouldn't assume absolute ignorance on our part. It would be dumb to start every debate with a tabula rasa... or zero assumptions whatsoever. But it would be even worse to be so satisfied with our own conclusions that we repel all challenges.

Of course, philosophers set out to find satisfying conclusions to ethical problems, and some issues are genuinely resolved as a result of such investigations. But more often than not, philosophers find themselves in a state of profound ignorance and profound dissatisfaction.

But what's worse? Realizing that you are in a profound state of ignorance? Or being in an even more profound state of ignorance that you think you already have the answer before conducting the investigation? I would rather be in the former category over the latter. But realizing how difficult the problem is is incredibly dissatisfying.

The reason Plato is one of the greatest philosophers ever to have lived is not because his theories are so strong. In fact, many of his theories are quite dubious. But what Plato teaches us is that when we reach that state of utter dissatisfaction, we are on the right track. That is where the real philosophy begins, so to speak. Look at Meno. In Meno, we set out to determine whether virtue can be taught. Socrates makes some headway in showing what the answer might be, especially with his demonstration of the slave boy learning some geometry. But what mostly happens through the course of the book is that we are presented with several deep and bothersome problems. Rather than offering a nice, tidy solution to each of these issues, Plato instead opts to leave his readers in a state of profound dissatisfaction over them at the end of the book. Oftentimes, the reader finishes Meno with less confidence in what they can determine about virtue than when they started. Many of Plato's early works end in this fashion. And Plato did that deliberately. That's the genius of Plato, and that's why his early works are still taught today in many introductory philosophy courses. Some philosophical issues require a lot of argument to even begin to make sense of them

It is much the same when we try to resolve ethical issues. Insofar as well-argued hedonism still has problems shows that we have learned enough about hedonism (and its strengths) to also recognize it has important weakness and problems as an ethical theory.

The reason you are "infuriated" or dissatisfied is that you are a good philosopher.

Had you done nothing but nod your head and express satisfaction with my arguments during our discourse, I would hardly have reason to clarify or support my positions. Neither of us would have reason to dig deep and present stronger arguments, and as a result, little of substance would have been said in the process. I'm incredibly grateful for your disagreements and challenges. They are of a high quality. I've produced better arguments because of your criticisms. And, hopefully, this goes in the other direction too.

Absolutely. I've never found someone who was able to defend moral realism as well as you have here, which is also frustrating because I don't just want to assume that I'm right about moral nihilism in the absence of a decent argument against it.

Most people I talk to on the subject just think it's "obvious" that their particular, idiosyncratic moral preferences are clearly right. A lot of Humanists, for instance, take concepts like human rights or welfarist consequentialism as gospel. They can't even comprehend the notion that their understanding of "good" or "bad" might be wrong, and get righteous indignation at anyone who might suggest otherwise.

I find that this happens even among people I know who hold degrees in philosophy, which surprises me. I would think that a proper education in philosophy would prevent them from making what seems to me to be quite elementary mistakes, on par with assuming the existence of God in the so-called reformed epistemology used by apologists and theologians.

I don't understand why people who call themselves skeptics and critical thinkers so often fall into the same exact myths used by the religious, just naturalized. They should know better. So maybe they do know better and I'm just missing something about their arguments, but that's also what I thought about Catholic doctrine before I deconverted from Catholicism. It seems that the best arguments for a position are often popular enough that you will hear them quite shortly after looking into the subject.

You have breathed more energy into arguments that I thought fell completely flat on their face, perhaps explaining them in a way that I can understand them more.

PS: I'm STILL working on a reply to your criticism of the article. The reason why is that I am learning exactly WHY self-motivation was brought into the argument in the first place. As luck would have it, my old ethics textbook has a few pages devoted to it. (I'm also reading online sources.) It has to do with an argument formulated by Hume called the Moral Motivation Argument. (I have quoted the argument below if you desire to give it some consideration. It is an error theorist argument, so I thought you may be interested in reading it.)

1. Moral judgments are able, all by themselves, to motivate those who make them.
2. Beliefs are never able, all by themselves, to motivate those who hold them.
3. Therefore, moral judgments are not beliefs.
4. If moral judgments are not beliefs, they can't be true.
5. Therefore, moral judgments can't be true.
(quoted from The Fundamentals of Ethics by Russ Shafer-Landau)

This reminds me a bit of Socratic intellectualism, where it's speculated that everyone was designed by God to wish to do the right thing, and so knowing more about the world around us helps us be more moral in the sense that it lets us pursue the right thing more efficiently.

I honestly find this approach to be terribly naive. I don't think these thinkers had access to the internet or the psychological studies we have now, with all of the needlessly sadistic cruelty made more plain. Some people are genuinely malevolent in the very core of their being. It might be difficult for more sensible people to understand this, even to the point of trying to rationalize these actions for the perpetrators, but I think we know now that it isn't the case that everyone is motivated to do good.

Hume's argument here, to his credit, does not make the same lofty generalization. He just says that moral judgments are able to motivate those who make them by themselves. This is also something I think moral psychology has disproven, though. It's not that moral judgments themselves motivate us, but that we moralize various drives we already have, which everyone has to a different degree. Some of us have our prosocial drives overshadowed by impulsive aggression, which we see in sociopaths, and oddly enough sociopaths frequently moralize their antisocial acts.

I think that both the moralization sociopaths have for their antisocial behavior and the fact that people tend to hold their own moral preferences as "obvious" are facts better explained by morality being something individuals assign than something real or objective.

 

[Ella S.]

If morality isn't about avoiding avoidable suffering and / or increasing well-being... then what is it about?
If "bad" aren't those things that harm, hurt, increase suffering... then what is it about?
If "good" aren't those things that bring happiness, heal, increase well-being,... then what is it about?

Tbh, I'm kind of surprised how many times in discussions about morality, this question comes up. I've always considered it a given that that is what "bad" and "good" was actually about.


If bad/good doesn't ultimately pertain to suffering / well-being, then what does it relate to?

Nothing. They don't relate to anything. They're values, not facts; they have no basis in reality.

It wasn't long ago that "morality" was synonymous with "obedience to a moral authority." What you're describing here is Utilitarianism, which is a relatively recent moral philosophy and highly disputed by ethicists.

You could argue that some form of Utilitarianism can be found earlier, such as with the Epicureans, yet the Epicureans were still not straightforward consequentialists.

The stance you have here contradicts with deontology and virtue ethics, as well. So obedience, deontology, virtue ethics, etc. are all good examples of how morality can be approached in a way other than the Utilitarian position you describe here, with Utilitarianism itself being a minority position despite its popularity.

That's why it's a bias, @vulcanlogician. It's a highly controversial position that's not really well-supported yet; there is no consensus among ethical philosophers that Hedonic Utilitarianism is correct. I'd argue that it's what Sartre calls "bad faith," where someone is blaming reality for the values they have chosen to assign to real things. The values did not exist prior to our assignment of them. The world can't tell us what we should and should not value, and is in fact agentless and incapable of creating its own values. We are forced to construct our own, whether we acknowledge that we have done so or not.

Even those who obey authority as their moral doctrine have chosen to evaluate that obedience to that authority as good. If they said this was objective, because the authority really does exist and we know exactly what constitutes breaking those moral laws, they are pretty much on equal footing with people who describe happiness as objectively good and suffering as objectively bad. They are merely assigning values to real things, not demonstrating that their values are real in and of themselves.

ETA: I also don't want to imply that I'm not biased as a moral nihilist. While I do think moral nihilism is the more supported position in science (not ethics), I think it might be impossible to hold an unbiased and purely logical position on morality.

 

[vulcanlogician]

Also, maybe the God fills the world with NPCs and lets bad things happen to them so that the real humans get to experience a range of emotions and make their challenges more meaningful.

Y'know, I've done a fair amount of Dungeon Mastering in my day... and see exactly what you mean. I'm the kind of atheist who doesn't put much stock into the argument from evil. (I tend to focus on stuff like "There's no evidence," and "Scriptures resemble works of fiction" -- but the problem of evil is not as big a problem as it's made out to be, IMO.)

I mean, yeah, the state of the world does seem to bruise the "omnibenevolence" claim a bit, so I don't think the problem of evil is asinine or anything, but God could make things right in a number of ways. And the world being as horrible as it is serves as a motivator for many, many people (atheists and theists alike) to take actions that improve it. Soul making theodicies actually carry a little bit of water with me.

Plus that, as with your D&D example, a dangerous world is more interesting than a "nerf-padded" world.

The problem is that the world is complex. We cannot predict impact on the whole from the modification of single variables as there is too much potential for unintended consequences due to non-linearities, emergent effects, dynamic feedback loops, etc.

So I just googled "the mass of jupiter" turns out it's 1.898 × 10^27 kg. I don't think anyone is claiming that number is accurate to the very kilogram. It is (for all intents and purposes) impossible to estimate the mass of Jupiter to the kilogram accurately. But I'm sure this number is more than just a shot in the dark. Despite many confusing things about the mass of Jupiter (it probably loses and gains material on an annual basis) it is still possible to make somewhat accurate determinations about its mass.

Likewise with our "moral science." Just because it's difficult to avoid error doesn't mean we can't make some basic outlines of what's going on.

... one might decide it is "objectively" good to protect a child from harm and scientifically go about making them as safe as possible.

But is this the best thing for the child's long term development as they enter a world where they have to be alert to threats and be robust to negative experiences?

I think a philosopher can handle ideas like that.

Plato ("Mr. Objective Morality" himself) thought that citizens ought to bring their children along to watch the battles when the city went to war. Why? To teach them courage. To kind of "condition" them to be comfortable with war. He did say they ought to remain at a safe distance, and be swept off to safety if things begin to go south... but it seems like one of his concerns (which ultimately related to justice) was that citizens grew up being able to handle the horrors of war. He thought courage was a necessary virtue, and thus good to teach to children.

Modern hedonists would never do this, granted. But it's not a problem for all moral objectivists.

Humans lack the information and cognitive abilities to judge such things accurately on a consistent basis.

Well, I mean, what's your take on my "mass of Jupiter" example? I think the same principle applies here. Psychology is complicated. I think we can both agree on that. But, again, at the very least... vague determinations might be made on those fronts, no? And, however vague, true information is true information. We can say things like, "burning children with cigarettes for your own amusement will probably (but not always) have long term negative effects on their psychological development." Helicopter parenting is less clear, but we might make some headway in determine its overall effect too.

I'm more inclined towards value pluralism than pure relativism.

I like pluralism too. But my rigid intellectualism makes "the perfect monistic theory" seem appealing to me. Aside from that, hedonists make some pretty sound arguments to the effect that all "bad" things ultimately involve pain, suffering, or sadness of some sort. I'm not sold on hedonism or anything, but it's one of the stronger moral theories out there, so I like to trot it out in debates like these.

 

[Brian2]

Yeah. It was spread out over time.I can summarize here, inputting your responses as I interpreted them. (Let me know if I misinterpreted any of your positions.

The question is this: Is God required for morality to be objective?
My answer: no
Your answer: yes

Here is how we defined objective morality: "Morality applies regardless of our endorsements, regardless of whether they get us what we want. Moral claims are true independent of any human attitude or opinion regarding them."

So far so good. We both think objective morality can't involve human attitudes or opinions, but that doesn't preclude God does it?

So, as far as I can tell there are two strategies for supporting the idea of God's necessity for morality. The first is to say that morality involves laws or rules and that laws or rules must have an author. These claims were expressed logically as arguments A and B.

Reminder:

Spoiler

Argument A:

1. If morality is objective, humans didn't create it.
2. If humans didn't create morality, then God did.
3. Therefore: If morality is objective, then God created it.

Argument B:

1. If there is a law, there is an author.
2. Morality involves laws.
3. Therefore: Morality needs to have an author.

4. There are only two possible authors of morality: humans or God.
5. Therefore: If humans didn't create morality, then God did.

My argument was that premise 1 of argument B is false. That means the conclusion is unsupported. The conclusion of argument B is premise 2 of argument A. Therefore, the conclusion of argument A is not supported. So we have no reason to accept the idea that moral laws require God as an author. You didn't really give much pushback there, but if you wish to now, go for it..

Next, we looked at Divine Command Theory (or DCT). DCT says that right and wrong do not inherently exist in reality, and that things only BECOME right or wrong by gods prescription or forbiddance of them.

Divine Command Theory:

"An action is only morally bad because God forbids it. An action is only morally right because God prescribes it."

In response to this you said:



That suggests that you think Divine Command Theory is false. And since we already agree, it didn't seem like I needed to refute Divine Command Theory. (But I can if it is required.)

So, if God is not needed as a lawmaker for morality AND Divine Command Theory is false, that means God is not required for objective morality. That means, when we ask the question, "Is God required for morality to be objective?" the answer seems to be, "no."

Even if God exists and is a perfect moral teacher whose commands ought to be followed, that doesn't mean that we NEED God in order to have objective morality. It just makes him a wise teacher who ought to be paid attention to. Like a good math teacher. Sure, you should listen to what they have to teach us about math, but that doesn't mean that math itself requires such a teacher to exist.

That's what we talked about so far. I'm open to any objections you might have. Is there any part of that you'd like to revisit? Is there something that deserves consideration that was not yet discussed? I'll approach any argument or objection you may have with an open mind.

I find the whole thing rather nuanced and not with straight forward answers.
God is the teacher of right and wrong and also God can be the maker of right and wrong for people.
There might be objective morality but that does not mean that people will be judged according to that standard if they don't know it because of a warped upbringing or have an illness which prevents good understanding.

 

[vulcanlogician]

I don't recognize that intuition is a reliable means of generating the correct answers to math problems. As I said, these intuitions are ideally double-checked by our analytical minds. I only relied on intuition due to the limitations of my circumstances. I think this is something that should be avoided whenever possible.

Well, we're arguing two different things here. We are asking two different questions:

1. Can intuitions generate correct answers to math problems?
2. Is it wise to rely upon intuitions to generate correct answers to math problems without double checking?

I think the answer to 1 is "yes," while the answer to 2 is "no." That's why I think intuitions are valuable for pointing us in the right direction, but a dubious foundation for any theory. It's okay that the pleasure machine thought experiment relies on intuition. Because, if we think the thought experiment says something, we can state that in logical form.

1. Monistic hedonism claims that pleasure/happiness is the sole intrinsic good.
2. There are other intrinsic goods besides pleasure happiness.
3. Therefore, monistic hedonism is false.

I think the logic of the argument is sound. I also think premise 1 is true. Premise 1 is a definition. It accurately portrays the position of most (if not all) monistic hedonists. So the only avenue we have toward challenging monistic hedonism is attacking premise 2. (I'm going to stop saying "monistic" from here on out, and just say hedonism... even though I mean "monistic hedonism.")

There are other human values that might not reduce completely to happiness or pleasure. If even one of those is compelling, we have found something that disproves hedonism. We need to be careful to circumnavigate the hedonist's contention about intrinsic and instrumental goods (which I think are good). But if we can do that, we've refuted hedonism.

We can argue that things like autonomy, aesthetics, or truth are intrinsically valuable. For truth we might argue that false happiness (happiness based on a lie) carries with it an intrinsic badness. That sort of argument pressures the hedonist into claiming things like "life inside the Matrix is better than life outside of it." A lot of hedonists are more than willing to make that case, but for many of us, those arguments are dubious. Hedonism is a strong theory, but it is also dissatisfying. And when one realizes this, as I indicated before with Plato's early works, we become ready to wade into ethics and try to sort these matters out.

This is a part of ethics I find fascinating. The part that asks what the values really are... the part that weighs value against value and encourages debate about which is most suitable as a moral value. Yes, this is a vague and messy enterprise. We are pretty much promised at the outset not to get a neat and tidy resolution to the problems. But that doesn't mean it isn't an important debate to have. We can learn much by asking such questions. At the very least, we can map out precisely where our utter ignorance on the issues lie. If we remain logical throughout such debates I think some things can be gleaned from them.

But not everyone likes to have such debates. But the question I like to put forward is this: "Are human beings better off not having the inclination or ability to ask such questions?"

I think it is good that we ask such questions... even if they only lead to our general puzzlement. Why? Because if we didn't experience the puzzlement and confusion, faulty assumptions would be there in their place. I'd rather be confused about something than misinformed.

This reminds me a bit of Socratic intellectualism, where it's speculated that everyone was designed by God to wish to do the right thing, and so knowing more about the world around us helps us be more moral in the sense that it lets us pursue the right thing more efficiently.

The idea goes like this: "A person can only do wrong for the reason that he does not know any better."

It's a beautiful idea, which counted as a strength to the Greeks (including Plato and Socrates). But even Plato, after having endorsed the idea in his Early Works, started making moral arguments that did not assume such a thesis by the time he wrote the Republic. Somewhere in his Middle Works (or perhaps earlier) he seems to have abandoned the idea altogether.

It is wise for us to throw a lot of Plato's ideas in the trash can. I think it's good that we've moved beyond the assumption that morality is "somewhere etched on the keystone of the highest archway of all reality."

A lot of those kinds of dubious views are expressed in Plato's writings, but people forget that Plato was debating the merits of those ideas... not giving a quasi-religious style endorsement of them. Much confusion comes about because Plato became more certain of these ideas when he wrote his Late Works. And further suspicion is (unjustly) cast on Plato's works because of the quasi-religious stylings imposed on his theories by the Neoplatonists hundreds of years after his death.

I don't see much value in "Platonism"... and even less in "Neoplatonism." But I do see an incredible amount of value in Plato himself, especially his Early and Middle period works. Not because they contain truth, but because they genuinely and unapologetically interrogate colloquial claims about the universe and reality.

Socrates' monotheism is another weird thing that we haven't quite sorted out. He seemingly rejected the Olympian gods, much to the chagrin of his peers, favoring an odd sort of religion. A religion more resembling the teachings of mystery cults or Eastern esotericism. It's a mysterious tidbit that philosophers and historians haven't really clarified. Does his rejection of the Olympian gods make him a kindred spirit to atheists? Or does his odd monotheism make him some kind of proto-Christian? I don't think we have the necessary information to make judgments about it either way.

ETA: I also don't want to imply that I'm not biased as a moral nihilist. While I do think moral nihilism is the more supported position in science (not ethics), I think it might be impossible to hold an unbiased and purely logical position on morality.

I mean, I really don't want to argue against Sartre, who had ideas about all "objective reality" that placed it in tension with our subjective perceptions. They're good arguments, mind you. But it's a whole can of worms to begin suggesting that our subjective existence supersedes "objectivity" in the manner Sartre suggests. Plus that, I don't know much Sartre. Nietzsche made the same kind of valuations though, so I know where arguments of that kind come from. (I'm fairly familiar with Nietzsche having read some of his works multiple times, and all his important works at least once-- except Birth of Tragedy.)

I also don't want to imply that I'm not biased as a moral nihilist. While I do think moral nihilism is the more supported position in science (not ethics), I think it might be impossible to hold an unbiased and purely logical position on morality.

So, since I already have my ethics textbook out, I'm wondering if you'd like to chew on this argument for a while.

The Argument from the Scientific Test of Reality:

1. If science cannot verify the existence of X, then the best evidence tells us that X does not exist.
2. Science cannot verify the existence of objective moral values.
3. Therefore, the best evidence tells us that objective moral values do not exist.

(From Fundamentals of Ethics by Russ Shafer-Landau.)

This is another error theorist argument that I find very interesting. I find it interesting FIRST because I think it is a strong argument and ALSO because moral realists have only two valid replies to it: either premise 1 is false or premise 2 is false. And whatever reply the moral realist gives, commits her to a certain kind of moral realism (in this case, either moral naturalism or moral non-naturalism).

I think the next step in our investigation is to look at moral nihilism (especially error theory because it is so strong) and examine arguments surrounding moral nihilism. ie. moral objectivism has had to make its way through the gauntlet of skepticism, and now it's moral nihilism's turn to take a turn.

(Not to imply that moral realism successfully made its way through the gauntlet, but I think it's time we spent some time analyzing nihilism in a similar fashion.)

 

[vulcanlogician]

I find the whole thing rather nuanced and not with straight forward answers.
God is the teacher of right and wrong and also God can be the maker of right and wrong for people.
There might be objective morality but that does not mean that people will be judged according to that standard if they don't know it because of a warped upbringing or have an illness which prevents good understanding.

I think that what you care about is the practicality of obeying God, whereas I'm trying to discern whether God is needed for objective morality on a theoretical level. At the end of the day, you've decided to obey God's commandments. And, if God exists, there are good practical reasons to make that determination. I can't really argue with you on that front because I actually agree with you. (Provided that God genuinely is the all-good deity that he is presumed to be.)

But other theists (not you, I don't think) want to make the claim that, without God, there can be no objective morality. Period. (At a theoretical level.)

My arguments are more properly aimed at THAT position than your own. Because I see nothing wrong with obeying God for practical reasons. I don't really see where we disagree.

 

[vulcanlogician]

Most people I talk to on the subject just think it's "obvious" that their particular, idiosyncratic moral preferences are clearly right. A lot of Humanists, for instance, take concepts like human rights or welfarist consequentialism as gospel.

That's BS for the most part, though there is something about welfarism and hedonism that strikes us as obvious, we needn't assume moral beliefs motivate moral actions.

LINK TO VIDEO CLICK HERE (It's very short.)

A.J. Ayer was an emotivist... a very staunch noncognitivist moral nihilist. And yet, he did the thing described in the video above. Why? Probably he would say, "out of disgust for Mike Tyson's actions." Regardless of his reasons, I would probably crap my pants if Mike Tyson got in my face and said, "Do you know who I am?" Yet Ayer maintained composure. It's probably important that moral realists admit that their theories are not required to motivate moral actions. So any appeals to emotion or suggestion of that is decidedly false.

 

[Ella S.]

Well, we're arguing two different things here. We are asking two different questions:

1. Can intuitions generate correct answers to math problems?
2. Is it wise to rely upon intuitions to generate correct answers to math problems without double checking?

I think the answer to 1 is "yes," while the answer to 2 is "no." That's why I think intuitions are valuable for pointing us in the right direction, but a dubious foundation for any theory. It's okay that the pleasure machine thought experiment relies on intuition. Because, if we think the thought experiment says something, we can state that in logical form.

I agree with your point that it's okay that a thought experiment relies on intuition if we can state in a logical form.

1. Monistic hedonism claims that pleasure/happiness is the sole intrinsic good.
2. There are other intrinsic goods besides pleasure happiness.
3. Therefore, monistic hedonism is false.

Okay! This makes sense. I think I was getting hung up on the fact that both hedonism and this counter-argument are relying on moral intuition to provide insight into what intrinsic goods are.

This elucidates so much for me. Thank you, honestly. I really wasn't getting it.

I think the logic of the argument is sound. I also think premise 1 is true. Premise 1 is a definition. It accurately portrays the position of most (if not all) monistic hedonists. So the only avenue we have toward challenging monistic hedonism is attacking premise 2. (I'm going to stop saying "monistic" from here on out, and just say hedonism... even though I mean "monistic hedonism.")

The fact that the thought experiment is an argument against specifically monistic hedonism and not just hedonism in general is incredibly pertinent. It was also something that was completely lost on me until you laid the argument out in syllogistic form, which I appreciate. I was having a lot of trouble formulating what the underlying argument actually was and you've done a great job of demonstrating that.

There are other human values that might not reduce completely to happiness or pleasure. If even one of those is compelling, we have found something that disproves hedonism. We need to be careful to circumnavigate the hedonist's contention about intrinsic and instrumental goods (which I think are good). But if we can do that, we've refuted hedonism.

We can argue that things like autonomy, aesthetics, or truth are intrinsically valuable. For truth we might argue that false happiness (happiness based on a lie) carries with it an intrinsic badness. That sort of argument pressures the hedonist into claiming things like "life inside the Matrix is better than life outside of it." A lot of hedonists are more than willing to make that case, but for many of us, those arguments are dubious. Hedonism is a strong theory, but it is also dissatisfying. And when one realizes this, as I indicated before with Plato's early works, we become ready to wade into ethics and try to sort these matters out.

This is a part of ethics I find fascinating. The part that asks what the values really are... the part that weighs value against value and encourages debate about which is most suitable as a moral value. Yes, this is a vague and messy enterprise. We are pretty much promised at the outset not to get a neat and tidy resolution to the problems. But that doesn't mean it isn't an important debate to have. We can learn much by asking such questions. At the very least, we can map out precisely where our utter ignorance on the issues lie. If we remain logical throughout such debates I think some things can be gleaned from them.

But not everyone likes to have such debates. But the question I like to put forward is this: "Are human beings better off not having the inclination or ability to ask such questions?"

I think it is good that we ask such questions... even if they only lead to our general puzzlement. Why? Because if we didn't experience the puzzlement and confusion, faulty assumptions would be there in their place. I'd rather be confused about something than misinformed.

I agree. I definitely don't think the whole field of ethics should be dismantled. Although, if I'm being honest, I do think there are more important pursuits we could be spending public funding on than a field that has no straight answers and seems unlikely to reach any kind of consensus any time soon.

It's not that these questions are worthless to me, but I value answers more than questions. I know that a lot of philosophers roll over in their grave when I say that, but a key aspect of ancient philosophy is phronesis. Wisdom itself was frequently regarded as the art of applying knowledge. The pragmatic value of this sort of line of inquiry is, in my opinion, very limited precisely because it doesn't really go anywhere.

And that's an issue I have with a lot of modern, academic philosophy in general. Not all of it, but a good chunk of it isn't really getting us anywhere. We're mostly paying people for intellectual masturbation when we could be, you know, using that money to provide healthcare services, house the homeless, feed the poor, etc. It's not that these questions don't have value, but they are overvalued by our society.

That's a whole other topic, though.

The idea goes like this: "A person can only do wrong for the reason that he does not know any better."

It's a beautiful idea, which counted as a strength to the Greeks (including Plato and Socrates). But even Plato, after having endorsed the idea in his Early Works, started making moral arguments that did not assume such a thesis by the time he wrote the Republic. Somewhere in his Middle Works (or perhaps earlier) he seems to have abandoned the idea altogether.

It is wise for us to throw a lot of Plato's ideas in the trash can. I think it's good that we've moved beyond the assumption that morality is "somewhere etched on the keystone of the highest archway of all reality."

A lot of those kinds of dubious views are expressed in Plato's writings, but people forget that Plato was debating the merits of those ideas... not giving a quasi-religious style endorsement of them. Much confusion comes about because Plato became more certain of these ideas when he wrote his Late Works. And further suspicion is (unjustly) cast on Plato's works because of the quasi-religious stylings imposed on his theories by the Neoplatonists hundreds of years after his death.

I don't see much value in "Platonism"... and even less in "Neoplatonism." But I do see an incredible amount of value in Plato himself, especially his Early and Middle period works. Not because they contain truth, but because they genuinely and unapologetically interrogate colloquial claims about the universe and reality.

I share many of the same views about Plato, Platonism, and Neoplatonism. I think it's pretty clear why he's often regarded as one of the most important figures in Western philosophy, but I don't really agree with most of his conclusions. I'd say that his general process has been refined a lot, too. I can still appreciate him within the context of his time, though.

Socrates' monotheism is another weird thing that we haven't quite sorted out. He seemingly rejected the Olympian gods, much to the chagrin of his peers, favoring an odd sort of religion. A religion more resembling the teachings of mystery cults or Eastern esotericism. It's a mysterious tidbit that philosophers and historians haven't really clarified. Does his rejection of the Olympian gods make him a kindred spirit to atheists? Or does his odd monotheism make him some kind of proto-Christian? I don't think we have the necessary information to make judgments about it either way.

I wonder if the Library of Alexandria had anything that would have clarified the subject.

I mean, I really don't want to argue against Sartre, who had ideas about all "objective reality" that placed it in tension with our subjective perceptions. They're good arguments, mind you. But it's a whole can of worms to begin suggesting that our subjective existence supersedes "objectivity" in the manner Sartre suggests. Plus that, I don't know much Sartre. Nietzsche made the same kind of valuations though, so I know where arguments of that kind come from. (I'm fairly familiar with Nietzsche having read some of his works multiple times, and all his important works at least once-- except Birth of Tragedy.)

That's fair. Existentialist metaphysics would be quite a tangent. I'm not really on-board with all of Existentialist metaphysics, myself, but I think many of the ideas make sense in a naturalistic context, too.

So, since I already have my ethics textbook out, I'm wondering if you'd like to chew on this argument for a while.

The Argument from the Scientific Test of Reality:

1. If science cannot verify the existence of X, then the best evidence tells us that X does not exist.
2. Science cannot verify the existence of objective moral values.
3. Therefore, the best evidence tells us that objective moral values do not exist.

(From Fundamentals of Ethics by Russ Shafer-Landau.)

This is another error theorist argument that I find very interesting. I find it interesting FIRST because I think it is a strong argument and ALSO because moral realists have only two valid replies to it: either premise 1 is false or premise 2 is false. And whatever reply the moral realist gives, commits her to a certain kind of moral realism (in this case, either moral naturalism or moral non-naturalism).

I think the next step in our investigation is to look at moral nihilism (especially error theory because it is so strong) and examine arguments surrounding moral nihilism. ie. moral objectivism has had to make its way through the gauntlet of skepticism, and now it's moral nihilism's turn to take a turn.

(Not to imply that moral realism successfully made its way through the gauntlet, but I think it's time we spent some time analyzing nihilism in a similar fashion.)

Hm. I have a lot of thoughts on this one, I'll probably have to make it a separate post.

 

[Ella S.]

I'm going to tackle the last part of your post backwards, if you don't mind. I drank a whole container of straight black tea and I am hyper-caffeinated today, and I am not working this week, so this is really a great outlet for me to use all of this energy I have. I appreciate the opportunity.

I think the next step in our investigation is to look at moral nihilism (especially error theory because it is so strong) and examine arguments surrounding moral nihilism. ie. moral objectivism has had to make its way through the gauntlet of skepticism, and now it's moral nihilism's turn to take a turn.

(Not to imply that moral realism successfully made its way through the gauntlet, but I think it's time we spent some time analyzing nihilism in a similar fashion.)

Definitely, let's pick on the moral nihilists. Those guys are total nerds.

This is another error theorist argument that I find very interesting. I find it interesting FIRST because I think it is a strong argument and ALSO because moral realists have only two valid replies to it: either premise 1 is false or premise 2 is false. And whatever reply the moral realist gives, commits her to a certain kind of moral realism (in this case, either moral naturalism or moral non-naturalism).

That's a fascinating point about this argument. Both premises essentially refute each half of moral realism. It makes me think of many other inventive ways one could address both sides of various arguments into separate premises to debunk the entire thing.

1. Good chefs do not abuse their employees
2. Gordan Ramsey abuses his employees
3. Gordan Ramsey is not a good chef

Gordan Ramsey apologists have to attack either premise 1 or 2. Premise 1 will be attacked by those who hold that Ramsey's abuse does not make him any less of a chef, whereas Premise 2 will be attacked by those who hold that Ramsey's actions are not really as abusive as they seem.

This example also took me way too long to come up with.

1. If science cannot verify the existence of X, then the best evidence tells us that X does not exist.

I have a few gripes about this premise. First, science forms theories based on sustained hypotheses. I do not think that sustained hypotheses are the best form of evidence. I think direct observation is the best form of evidence, which is used to sustain hypotheses but it can also be used for empirical arguments more generally. "I think, therefore I am" does not require an experiment to prove; the only evidence it uses is an observation.

Secondly, the philosophy of science is directly antagonistic towards the concept of verification. It's why Logical Positivism is mostly dead now. Science is more concerned with falsification.

Technically, since science cannot verify the existence of anything, the logical consequence of this premise is that the best evidence tells us that nothing exists. I hope that is a demonstrative Reductio ad Absurdum.

Thirdly, because science relies on falsification, we cannot say that a failure to verify something tells us that it does not exist. We can only say that our data falsifies particular hypotheses that we form based on the idea that something exists. If the existence of something is unfalsifiable, then science cannot provide evidence that it does not exist because it cannot conduct an experiment on the subject. Science has to remain agnostic. It's only through logic that we can dismiss unfalsifiable claims.

Fourthly, there is a difference between not having evidence for something's existence and falsifying its existence in science. The former can happen in the absence of any experimental data, whereas the latter requires experimental data. This is pretty similar to the third point in that science must remain agnostic on the matter.

These last two points do not refute the second half of this premise, but instead attack the premise as a whole. If the lack of evidence for the existence of X does not falsify X, then the scientific evidence does not tell us that X does not exist. If the implicit premise here is that scientific evidence is the best evidence, then the whole premise is wrong. If that is not an implicit premise, then more work has to be done to establish this correlation.

Fifthly, this is potentially an argument from ignorance. Even if scientific evidence is the best evidence, that does not necessarily mean that the lack of scientific evidence for the existence of X means that the best evidence tells us that X does not exist. There could be other kinds of evidence, such as direct sensory perception, which provide strong enough arguments for X. Even if you hold that these forms of evidence are inferior to science, that does not mean that the lack of scientific evidence is enough to override the conclusions we can draw from non-scientific evidence. I suspect moral non-realists make a similar counter-argument to this premise.

In essence, just because something cannot be demonstrated to be true to the highest standard, that does not necessarily mean that we do not still have good justification for asserting its truth. If that were true, then inductive reasoning as a whole would completely fall apart because it cannot prove its conclusions with the same certainty as deductive reasoning can, for instance. Another Reductio ad Absurdum for you.

2. Science cannot verify the existence of objective moral values.

While I would agree with this, it is only because I affirm that science cannot verify any claims.

If we were to reword this as "Science cannot support the existence of objective moral values," changing that one problematic word to be a bit more charitable and maybe closer to the spirit of the argument in an effort to steel-man it, I would say that this is an extremely bold assertion for a premise. It would probably take a whole other argument, if not multiple arguments, to defend the notion that it is impossible for science to demonstrate the existence of objective moral values. Even I probably wouldn't go as far as saying that.

We could reword the premise further into "Science has not supported the existence of objective moral values." We could then reword the first premise to mirror this use of language, too, which would refute my second counter-point to the first premise.

 

[vulcanlogician]

Okay! This makes sense. I think I was getting hung up on the fact that both hedonism and this counter-argument are relying on moral intuition to provide insight into what intrinsic goods are.

This elucidates so much for me. Thank you, honestly. I really wasn't getting it.

Good. I'm glad we are on the same page. And, yes. The thought experiment is not good criticism of the idea that pleasure is good and pain is bad. It is only when we add the monistic element that the thought experiment becomes decipherable as a refutation. You and I should probably just go ahead and state things in logical form if ever we become confused by the other's ideas.

I agree. I definitely don't think the whole field of ethics should be dismantled. Although, if I'm being honest, I do think there are more important pursuits we could be spending public funding on than a field that has no straight answers and seems unlikely to reach any kind of consensus any time soon.

It's not that these questions are worthless to me, but I value answers more than questions. I know that a lot of philosophers roll over in their grave when I say that, but a key aspect of ancient philosophy is phronesis. Wisdom itself was frequently regarded as the art of applying knowledge. The pragmatic value of this sort of line of inquiry is, in my opinion, very limited precisely because it doesn't really go anywhere.

Good God! Don't make me defend philosophy. As you might imagine, I think it's an incredibly important pursuit. I'm not saying you didn't make good points, but there is more to the story than the measurable value it has to society (which, I grant you might not be that much). Nor do I think everyone ought to study it or that it is more important than, say, math or science.

It is incredibly intellectually stimulating for certain students to study philosophy. And not just "bone deep" philosophers like me. A regular attendant of my philosophy classes back in school was a psych major who became incredibly interested in philosophy. I can't relay all the details of this person without going into laborious detail, but suffice it to say, I think his interest in philosophy probably helped him become a better psychologist. It's difficult to measure an impact like that, and I think there definitely was an impact in this case.

I hate to quote Plotinus after sh***ing on Neoplatonism in my last post, but he said: "The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be ignited." (I love that quote.) Philosophy is capable of igniting that fire in many rarified minds. And that speaks to its value. Not just general value, but specifically academic value. Exposure to philosophy prompts some students to think critically in a way they probably never would had they not been exposed to it. You just can't put a price tag on something like that.

And even though I have dozens more objections to your criticism of philosophy, I think I can leave you with this remark: philosophy when read alone and thought about alone may resemble masturbation. But when you have skilled teachers challenging students to think in a better way, it becomes more akin to intercourse. Academic philosophy is "tested" philosophy. You can't just rant ideas like an idiot and expect academic philosophers to follow suite. Granted, important philosophy can and does happen outside academia, but we shouldn't dispense with academic philosophy. Well-trained academicians are good at criticizing one another's ideas. They are gatekeepers who refuse to let weak ideas pass, and only begrudgingly do they accept strong ideas. We need that in our society which is, for the most part, guided by weak ideas and falsehoods. It's just a bastion of truth. And who knows but some day we might really need to have a bastion of truth around. It might not have measurable value like other disciplines, but I think its absence would be felt were it ever to disappear.

Plenty more objections: what would history look like with no philosophy? Would we have ever discovered liberalism without John Locke? Would we have been able to criticize capitalism with out Marx or Hegel? But I'm just gonna let all those go. Start a thread if you want the full compliment of my objections to your thesis.

I share many of the same views about Plato, Platonism, and Neoplatonism. I think it's pretty clear why he's often regarded as one of the most important figures in Western philosophy, but I don't really agree with most of his conclusions. I'd say that his general process has been refined a lot, too. I can still appreciate him within the context of his time, though.

Rationalism is one idea of his that I think is good and still deserves debate today. People get the impression that Plato was some kind of anti-empiricist. And I don't think that's true. What he argued was that the senses can only take us so far. After we have seen something, we need to apply reason in order to fully comprehend what lies before us. But that's a digression.

Hm. I have a lot of thoughts on this one, I'll probably have to make it a separate post.

Cool. I'll work on that next.

 

[Augustus]

So I just googled "the mass of jupiter" turns out it's 1.898 × 10^27 kg. I don't think anyone is claiming that number is accurate to the very kilogram. It is (for all intents and purposes) impossible to estimate the mass of Jupiter to the kilogram accurately. But I'm sure this number is more than just a shot in the dark. Despite many confusing things about the mass of Jupiter (it probably loses and gains material on an annual basis) it is still possible to make somewhat accurate determinations about its mass.

Likewise with our "moral science." Just because it's difficult to avoid error doesn't mean we can't make some basic outlines of what's going on.

Calculating the mass of Jupiter is complicated, but not complex.

Complex systems are systems whose behavior is intrinsically difficult to model due to the dependencies, competitions, relationships, or other types of interactions between their parts or between a given system and its environment. Systems that are "complex" have distinct properties that arise from these relationships, such as nonlinearity, emergence, spontaneous order, adaptation, and feedback loops, among others. Because such systems appear in a wide variety of fields, the commonalities among them have become the topic of their independent area of research. In many cases, it is useful to represent such a system as a network where the nodes represent the components and links to their interactions.

The term complex systems often refers to the study of complex systems, which is an approach to science that investigates how relationships between a system's parts give rise to its collective behaviors and how the system interacts and forms relationships with its environment.[1] The study of complex systems regards collective, or system-wide, behaviors as the fundamental object of study; for this reason, complex systems can be understood as an alternative paradigm to reductionism, which attempts to explain systems in terms of their constituent parts and the individual interactions between them.

Complex system - Wikipedia

I think a philosopher can handle ideas like that.

Plato ("Mr. Objective Morality" himself) thought that citizens ought to bring their children along to watch the battles when the city went to war. Why? To teach them courage. To kind of "condition" them to be comfortable with war. He did say they ought to remain at a safe distance, and be swept off to safety if things begin to go south... but it seems like one of his concerns (which ultimately related to justice) was that citizens grew up being able to handle the horrors of war. He thought courage was a necessary virtue, and thus good to teach to children.

Modern hedonists would never do this, granted. But it's not a problem for all moral objectivists.

How would one know it was objectively the best thing though?

Plato thought we could work things out "objectively" by reason, but most people today would accept there are obvious limitations to our cognition.

Well, I mean, what's your take on my "mass of Jupiter" example? I think the same principle applies here. Psychology is complicated. I think we can both agree on that. But, again, at the very least... vague determinations might be made on those fronts, no? And, however vague, true information is true information. We can say things like, "burning children with cigarettes for your own amusement will probably (but not always) have long term negative effects on their psychological development." Helicopter parenting is less clear, but we might make some headway in determine its overall effect too.

For me, for all intents and purposes, we can say torturing children for fun is wrong. I don't see how this can really help to build an objective morality though as it is too limited, and much beyond this we run into problems.

This is where complexity limits our ability to state things as objective good.

The problem with this for me is that what benefits one child might actively harm another.

Also the characteristics that are most beneficial are dependent on the environment. By modern standards, the treatment of children in Sparta, removal from family, extreme communal military training, cold-blooded murder as a right of passage, etc. are an unforgivable evil. We would call it torture.

At that time though, when the alternative may have been those children being killed or enslaved by another group, that the willingness to go to such lengths to give them a chance of success was a moral good.

Maybe in today's Western world, Secular Humanism is an effective ideology, but it would have led to the destruction of ancient Rome, and probably most societies prior to the 20th C.

In addition, to what extent can tolerant, flexible ideologies endure long-term? Many people would say at attachment to tradition is irrational and an impediment to progress, but once you abandon tradition whatever you are left with is fungible for the latest fad that 'seems best' at any given time.

An abandonment of tradition may create short term benefits, but, at least in theory, could increase the chances of violent utopian ideologies in the long term.

Given we don't know what the world of tomorrow looks like, what characteristics should we instil in the children of today?

Many sport hunting cruel and selfish, but were there to a collapse in society, children taught to hunt would be in a much better position than others.

I like pluralism too. But my rigid intellectualism makes "the perfect monistic theory" seem appealing to me. Aside from that, hedonists make some pretty sound arguments to the effect that all "bad" things ultimately involve pain, suffering, or sadness of some sort. I'm not sold on hedonism or anything, but it's one of the stronger moral theories out there, so I like to trot it out in debates like these.

Even if all bad things involve suffering or pain, that doesn't make suffering and pain bad. As we've noted some level of balance is probably best, but where do we draw the line?

 

[vulcanlogician]

1. Good chefs do not abuse their employees
2. Gordan Ramsey abuses his employees
3. Gordan Ramsey is not a good chef

I think we should be clear about what is meant by "good chef." I might be inclined to agree with the idea that good chefs do not abuse their employees, but that has no bearing on their skill concerning culinary arts. Ramsey may be a skilled chef in the sense that he can expertly prepare various dishes. If 3 suggests otherwise than 3 does not follow from 1 and 2.

I have a few gripes about this premise. First, science forms theories based on sustained hypotheses. I do not think that sustained hypotheses are the best form of evidence. I think direct observation is the best form of evidence, which is used to sustain hypotheses but it can also be used for empirical arguments more generally. "I think, therefore I am" does not require an experiment to prove; the only evidence it uses is an observation.

Secondly, the philosophy of science is directly antagonistic towards the concept of verification. It's why Logical Positivism is mostly dead now. Science is more concerned with falsification.

Technically, since science cannot verify the existence of anything, the logical consequence of this premise is that the best evidence tells us that nothing exists. I hope that is a demonstrative Reductio ad Absurdum.

Thirdly, because science relies on falsification, we cannot say that a failure to verify something tells us that it does not exist. We can only say that our data falsifies particular hypotheses that we form based on the idea that something exists. If the existence of something is unfalsifiable, then science cannot provide evidence that it does not exist because it cannot conduct an experiment on the subject. Science has to remain agnostic. It's only through logic that we can dismiss unfalsifiable claims.

Fourthly, there is a difference between not having evidence for something's existence and falsifying its existence in science. The former can happen in the absence of any experimental data, whereas the latter requires experimental data. This is pretty similar to the third point in that science must remain agnostic on the matter.

These are all good points. The presentation of what science actually does is not really well-represented in Shafer-Landau's argument. So how might we rephrase?

1. If science cannot possibly falsify X, then there is no reliable way to begin to determine if X might exist.
2. Science cannot possibly falsify objective moral values.
3. Therefore, there is no reliable way to begin to determine if objective moral values exist.

IDK. That's a first draft. It may be a lil' rough around the edges, but I think we can fashion it into an argument that captures what the original says, yet includes Karl Popper's thinking about science.

And to be fair, error theorists don't make this mistake. They are more akin to "agnostic atheists" about ethics than gnostic atheists. They don't say "all moral propositions are false." They say, "no moral proposition can be true." It is harder to assail the latter position. Gotta respect that.

Fifthly, this is potentially an argument from ignorance. Even if scientific evidence is the best evidence, that does not necessarily mean that the lack of scientific evidence for the existence of X means that the best evidence tells us that X does not exist. There could be other kinds of evidence, such as direct sensory perception, which provide strong enough arguments for X. Even if you hold that these forms of evidence are inferior to science, that does not mean that the lack of scientific evidence is enough to override the conclusions we can draw from non-scientific evidence. I suspect moral non-realists make a similar counter-argument to this premise.

I think the qualifier of "the best evidence" prevents it from being an argument from ignorance. I think it needs an "x is true" in the conclusion and a "we don't know if x is true" somewhere in the premises to be properly deemed invalid as an argument from ignorance.

In essence, just because something cannot be demonstrated to be true to the highest standard, that does not necessarily mean that we do not still have good justification for asserting its truth. If that were true, then inductive reasoning as a whole would completely fall apart because it cannot prove its conclusions with the same certainty as deductive reasoning can, for instance. Another Reductio ad Absurdum for you.

I think the main problem here is not with the conclusion. It's that premise 2 (in the original argument) is false. Regardless of its undeveloped idea of what science does, the argument is valid. It's conclusion follows from its premises. So to me the logical structure of the argument is fine. It's the falsity of 1 or 2 that prevents the argument from following. I'm most interested in the possibility that 2 is false.

But I'm also interested in the idea that premise 1 may be false. That leads to moral naturalism. Moral naturalism claims that science can and does give us information about what is objectively moral. The basic criticism aimed at this view is: If someone is an evil sadist, they could just as rightly stare into existence with mathematical precision and just as easily plot out a scheme of "immoral naturalism."

Not that non-naturalism is problem free either. It has issues about that involve epistemic foundations and metaphysics. And who wants to deal with that ****?